I find this a little hard to believe but let's pretend it's true and laugh at both teams anyway.

edit: more detailed quotes from Dreger's radio piece:

Quote

(Dreger:) “And these two clubs came real close to making a pretty big trade not that long ago and just couldn’t get it done, and that trade was Taylor Hall for I think they finally got to a place where Ottawa was willing to consider Cody Ceci – so it would have been Hall for Ceci – but had to be cleared in Ottawa through ownership. And before they could get clearance, Hall got traded to New Jersey for Larsson.”

...

1260 host Dustin Nielson took a moment before responding, possibly because he fell off his chair, and wanted a follow-up on this Hall-for-Ceci nugget, suggesting “there would have been more on that deal, right?”

I find this a little hard to believe but let's pretend it's true and laugh at both teams anyway.

edit: more detailed quotes from Dreger's radio piece:

Quote

(Dreger:) “And these two clubs came real close to making a pretty big trade not that long ago and just couldn’t get it done, and that trade was Taylor Hall for I think they finally got to a place where Ottawa was willing to consider Cody Ceci – so it would have been Hall for Ceci – but had to be cleared in Ottawa through ownership. And before they could get clearance, Hall got traded to New Jersey for Larsson.”

...

1260 host Dustin Nielson took a moment before responding, possibly because he fell off his chair, and wanted a follow-up on this Hall-for-Ceci nugget, suggesting “there would have been more on that deal, right?”

More and more when I hear Dreger he sounds like a complete windbag with his rumors. Nothing he ever reports comes remotely true. I know people used to joke that he got his "inside info" from Nonis who is somehow related to Dreger (2nd cousin?), and now that Nonis isn't a GM anywhere he's short of actual information. I'm starting to believe there's a kernel of truth there.

More and more when I hear Dreger he sounds like a complete windbag with his rumors. Nothing he ever reports comes remotely true. I know people used to joke that he got his "inside info" from Nonis who is somehow related to Dreger (2nd cousin?), and now that Nonis isn't a GM anywhere he's short of actual information. I'm starting to believe there's a kernel of truth there.

Dreger's very careful to make sure he usually phrases things as being discussed/were discussed/etc. - things we can't verify the accuracy of in any meaningful way (GMs tend to deny everything that gets reported this way). It's very rare that he actually says something is going down without it actually going down. So, I'm inclined to believe that there's some sort of fire generating this smoke. Maybe not the 1-for-1 part, but Ceci being the main piece of what would have headed to Edmonton in the deal - which might have made for an even more hilarious trade for the Oilers. As uninspiring a piece as Larsson is, I'd still rather have him over Ceci.

Logged

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

What possessed Chiarelli to believe that Hall was only worth a right-handed, minimally offensive, 2nd pairing defenceman? Talk about getting hosed.

I feel like this is a subject that's been chewed to death but the thing that always gets minimized when talking about that deal is the likelihood that Edmonton would be on a pretty high percentage of NTC lists and that Edmonton wanted someone young with a lot of team control. So it was a limited market and they didn't want someone who would just walk on them.

Trading Hall may have been a bad decision, and trading him at that moment was probably selling low, but I still don't necessarily buy that working with the priorities they had they could have done much better.

Logged

Give a man the reputation of an early riser and he can sleep 'til noon-Mark Twain

What possessed Chiarelli to believe that Hall was only worth a right-handed, minimally offensive, 2nd pairing defenceman? Talk about getting hosed.

He had a blip in his shooting percentage (plus injury-shortened season), and wasn't his own pick. It's all about culture with Chiarelli. See also: Kessel, Seguin, Hamilton, Eberle.

There was also the condition that the player in return have a long term contract at a lower-than-proper cap hit, because Edmonton needed good defensemen that were relatively inexpensive due to McJesus' upcoming contract and others.

They also wanted a RHD, if I remember correctly.

Basically, they knew they were going to overpay for a guy, but that guy is what they needed.

Not a great move, though, in retrospect...but they did need the capspace.